Israel and Palestine: A True One-State Solution

by Prof. George Bisharat

"Where is the Palestinian Mandela?" pundits occasionally ask. But after
these latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington fail -- as they
inevitably will -- the more pressing question may be: "Where is the Israeli
de Klerk?" Will an Israeli leader emerge with the former South African
president's moral courage and foresight to dismantle a discriminatory regime
and foster democracy based on equal rights?

For decades, the international community has assumed that historic Palestine
must be divided between Jews and Palestinians. Yet no satisfactory division
of the land has been reached. Israel has aggravated the problem by settling
roughly 500,000 Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, eliminating the
land base for a viable Palestinian state.

A de facto one-state reality has emerged, with Israel effectively ruling
virtually all of the former Palestine. Yet only Jews enjoy full rights in
this functionally unitary political system. In contrast, Palestinian
citizens of Israel endure more than 35 laws that explicitly privilege Jews
as well as policies that deliberately marginalize them. West Bank
Palestinians cannot drive on roads built for Israeli settlers, while
Palestinians in Gaza watch as their children's intellectual and physical
growth are stunted by an Israeli siege that has limited educational
opportunities and deepened poverty to acute levels. . . .